— Colophon & author

About
Alex Grozav,

who writes TypeScript by day, worries about design tokens by night, and is trying very hard to ship a book about both.

The long version

Hello, dear visitor – welcome to my journal! I'm Alex. After 16 years of designing and writing software, I've decided to finally share my thoughts and knowledge with the rest of the world. It's a genuinely hard thing for me to do, since most of my life I've been avoiding putting myself out there like it's a guaranteed ticket to failure.

"What changed?" you might ask. The answer is simple: I changed. My lifelong search for meaning and purpose has led me in a direction I didn't foresee: human connection. I want to bring value, give back, and connect to the community I'm a part of. Since you're reading this, that includes you!

I live in the beautiful city of Timișoara, Romania, together with my wonderful wife, Daiana, and our cat. I'm 32, and I'm passionate about technology, software, design and art. Getting older seems to have made me a bit wiser. Ever since my father taught me how to draw, I've been keeping pencils and a blank sheet of paper nearby. I've been creating things for as long as I can remember.

I've chosen the path of studying Computer Science, which led me to become a Software Engineer. It's a craft that I'm very fond of, a craft that allows me to put my strong creative side into practice, and one that has brought my family and me a comfortable life.

As a creator, I've been slowly and mindfully building software of my own – projects I'm very proud, of such as Styleframe and Inkline, and I'm dedicating this journal to writing about my lessons learned and the journey through it all.

Thank you – enjoy!

— Curriculum, in reverse

years of awesome software.

2022 — present

Staff Frontend Engineer @ n8n

Leading the Front End Team for one of the fastest growing source-available low-code Automation Platforms. My work consists in setting the foundation of every new architectural initiative, keeping the stack modern, as well as ensuring a great Developer Experience for every team member.

2021 — 2022

Principal Frontend Engineer @ ONVY

Developed an iOS health and lifestyle application that aggregates recovery, activity, stress, and mindfulness data from multiple devices. Used d3 for designing custom charts and data-driven visualization

2021

Lead Frontend Engineer @ Deloitte

Leading and mentoring a team of Front End Developers on a large-scale national health project. Used Vue.js with Vuex to build and deliver mission-critical micro-frontend web applications with reusable validation.

2017 — 2021

Senior Frontend Engineer @ Visma

Worked on laying the foundation for future Visma Applications by building the company's first official Vue.js UI Library and a very complex Data Table component. Worked on multiple leading financial applications for the Nordic market.

2010 — present

Software Engineer @ Open Source

Created, managed, and contributed to several Open Source Software projects. I'm happy to offer something valuable to the wonderful community that has made my career possible.

Styleframe · styleframe.dev

Styleframe is a next-gen Design Systems Styling Engine for writing type-safe, composable, and future-proof CSS in TypeScript. It's essentially a configurable dual-output transpiler-first system, offering a first-class Developer Experience.

Inkline · inkline.io

Inkline is an intuitive UI Components library for building high-quality, developer-friendly, accessible, and customizable Vue.js 3 Design Systems.

Open Source Awards @ Vue.js London 2019
Inkline was a community-nominated finalist for the Developer Experience category at the OS Awards.

— Operating principles

The detail matters

A library either feels loved and cared for or it does not. There is no in-between, and no shortcuts.

Documentation is design

A component is only as usable as the documentation that introduces it. Write the docs.

Quality software wins

Everything good I have shipped, I built and polished. Everything great, I built and polished again.

— Say hello